Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Tuesday, CNBC counted down its rankings for top states for business in 2012, and guess what? North Carolina came in at No. 4. If you've been listening to the haranguing from many Republicans especially Charlotte's former mayor Pat McCrory, who's salivating for the N.C. governor's job, about the state's alleged bad environment for business, you'd be shocked to hear that. Republican McCrory has said Gov. Bev Perdue and other Democratic policymakers have tarnished the N.C. "brand" with bad economic and political decisions.

Don't tell that to business groups including the National Association of Manufacturers and the Council on Competitiveness, who helped rank the 50 states for CNBC on 51 measures of business competitiveness that were then narrowed to 10 broad categories. The 10 metrics CNBC used included cost of doing business, quality of workforce, infrastructure, education, economy, business friendliness, technology and innovation, cost of living, access to capital and quality of life.

And on this score, Gov. Perdue has another reason to say we don't want to be Mississippi. That state came in 46th on the list. Florida, another alleged role model, came in 29th. Our neighbor to the south, who some lawmakers also want to mistakenly emulate on economic and education issues, South Carolina, came in 32nd. Coming in at No. 1 was Texas, followed by Utah and Virginia.

North Carolina has finished in the top 10 in all six years of CNBC’s business rankings. It was No. 3 in 2011. North Carolina has also come in No. 3 in ranking for the best states for business by Chief Executive, Site Selection and Forbes magazines over the last year.

To be sure, policymakers have work to do on making the state more competitive, getting people back to work, helping small businesses (a Thumbtack poll had the Tar Heel state 26th in small business friendliness - what do you think, N.C. small business owners?) and improving the state's overall economy. True tax reform needs to be on lawmakers' to-do list to accomplish that. But this is not a bad state for business by any stretch of the imagination. Politicians should stop promoting the myth that it is.

For the thousandth time, the vast majority of people who don't qualify for the minimum payment on their federal tax return in our progressive tax system are the working poor. They work long hours at hard jobs most of the people who have this view wouldn't even consider.

To say they're all lazy freeloaders is more than just ignorant - it's repulsive. Especially when the Republicans have declared that the ACA individual mandate - designed to eliminate health care freeloaders - is a threat to freedom and liberty. And no, they don't see that odd juxtaposition as hypocritical. Not at all.

Furthermore, to say the poor "don't pay any taxes" is profoundly disingenuous considering they often pay State taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, excise taxes, license fees and all the other forms of governmental revenue everybody else pays, all of which are regressive - which means those taxes hit their incomes harder.

It's amazing how prevalent this view is among these "compassionate conservatives". And how profoundly wrong it is.

From Fannie, a point of information: Amendment One, which constitutionally bans same-sex marriage and civil unions in North Carolina, was approved in the state's May primary but does not go into effect until Jan. 1, 2013. North Carolina has had a law on the books for 16 years banning same-sex marriages, however.

"Tuesday, CNBC counted down their rankings for top states for business in 2012, and guess what? North Carolina came in at No. 4. If you've been listening to the haranguing from many Republicans especially Charlotte's former mayor Pat McCrory, who's salivating for the N.C. governor's job, about the state's alleged bad environment for business, you'd be shocked to hear that."

No, I wouldn't. It makes perfect sense to me that NC ranks high on the list of a TV network that is so far left it would make Karl Marx shudder. NC has the highest state income tax in the South, punitive sales taxes on top of that, and 20 straight years of governors who have fought tooth and nail to raise taxes on everyone, through higher sales taxes, and the people and businesses that actually create jobs - the evil, vile, filthy, disguusting, Satanic "RICH."

A couple of questions for my liberal friends:

1) When was the last time a poor man gave you a job?

2) Do you have any idea when World War I is going to end and we can return to the days when it was illegal for the government to tax income?

You scream bloody murder that "the rich need to pay their fair share" in spite of the fact that the top 1% of the income earners earn 20% of the income but are paying more than 40% of the income taxes, and then you demonize them and their businesses for not hiring anyone.

You destroyed part of the fabric of our Constitution in 1913 by getting the 16th amendment ratified, legalizing the taxation of income, and you did it with the same class warfare you use in 2012 - that only "the rich" would pay the income tax and that it would go away after we get out of World War I.

While I can agree with liberals that trickle-down economics doesn't work all that well - I much prefer the FairTax method of taxing consumption instead of income and letting EVERYBODY keep their entire paycheck - it is infinitely better than the "tax everybody that makes more money than me" method that Democrats have been trying for decades, never coming remotely close to balanced budgets and low unemployment (with the exception of Clinton).

When do we get to the point where we realize that neither "tax the rich" nor trickle-down eceonmics is the answer, and we start doing something NEW?

If you bother to read the methodology used in this survey you'll see it's not very scientific and/or unbiased.

"We scored all 50 states on 51 measures of competitiveness developed with input from business groups including the National Association of Manufacturers and the Council on Competitiveness. States received points based on their rankings in each metric. Then, we separated those metrics into ten broad categories, weighting the categories based on how frequently they are cited in state economic development marketing materials. That way, our study ranks the states based on the criteria they use to sell themselves."

Further, the ranking apparently doesn't translate to jobs as all three of the states that have lower rankings than NC mentioned in the opinion piece have lower unemployment rates than NC.

A person who writes "CNBC counted down their rankings" is so illiterate her opinion is completely invalidated. CNBC is singular. "CNBC counted down its rankings..." This is the kind of mistake one would expect from a 7th grader, not from a competent editorial writer.

^^^Not to mention they were thinking of MSNBC, which fancies itself as the liberal counterpoint to FoxNews. Or maybe not.

For the modern conservative Republican, any network or media outlet that doesn't actively cheerlead for the official GOP ideology is a bastion of liberal bias. They have a very short list of "acceptable" media. Mostly radio & TV entertainers and pajama-clad bloggers who wake up angry and just get more steamed as the day goes on.

Absolutely Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. What is going on? Where are all those Millennials who are supposed to be Tweeting up a storm and rushing to your door. If you do Social Media, they will come. Sección Amarilla

About this blog

The Observer's editorial board cares deeply about Charlotte and the Carolinas, and has a problem with public officials who have forgotten that they report to citizens. Editorial page editor Taylor Batten and associate editors Peter St. Onge and Eric Frazier tackle politics and public policy issues locally, across the state and nation. Kevin Siers tackles those issues too in cartoons. Read their columns and biographical information on the CharlotteObserver.com Opinion page.